Learn something new every day

Yep, the 26 x 2.35 is at least an inch taller than the 26 x 1.75

 I can check that one off the list for today at least.  It has to do with bike wheels, or more precisely, how spokes are mounted.  I'll explain here shortly, but first, I took the Bumble Beast for a short ride Friday afternoon on a trail I had ridden regularly on the Komodo.  I wanted to get an honest idea of how the bent would do on terrain I am familiar with.  I was impressed with how well the bike handled, especially going down hill.  It does exhibit a little more wheel flop than I am accustomed to with the Cafe and Tour Easy. But then again, both these bikes have a 20 inch front wheel, and I have never ridden them on rough terrain at such slow speeds.  But what really got my attention was that when I turned the wheels sharply I would scrub the tire when I peddled.  And of course this shows up the most when climbing.  The tire scrub did not really slow me down, but it was aggravating.  I made it just a few feet shy of where I usually have to bail on the MTB, but I attribute a lot of that to getting used to riding a bent off road.  So today, between church services, I decide to do the same ride again.  My results were pretty much the same, but I actually made it a little further up the same hill.  However, one thing was obvious, the tire scrub was just unacceptable.  Shorter crank arms would cure that but at some expense, so I decided that for now a smaller wheel on the front should do the trick.  Just to prove my theory, I rode on home and pulled the front wheel (26 x 1.75) from the Dynamic and held it beside the 26 x 2.35 wheel that is on the Bumble Beast now. Sure enough the Dynamik wheel was about an inch shorter.  Oh and BTW,  my Dynamik has rim brakes, but I figured I could test my theory without the use of front brakes.   OK, let's mount it up right quick and take the bike for another spin.  However, unbeknownst to me, the spokes down near the hub on a wheel made for rim brakes are much wider then those on a bike with disk brakes.  In other words, once the wheel was on I noticed it wouldn't turn.  I took a  look and sure enough, the part of the brake that mounts to the fork was actually sitting slightly inside 2 spokes.  It's a good thing I just didn't hop on and take off as I probably would have bent or broke a spoke or tore the fork mounted part of the brakes somehow.  Anyways, I have a smaller tire 26 x 2.1  MTB tire and will mount it on the disk brake rim tomorrow and see if I have complete clearance. If that don't work I have a spare 26 x 1.75 that I am quite certain will work.